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In order to run a C++ program the program must be compiled and linked to create an executable. It is the executable that actually runs, not the source code. The source code is simply the human-readable code the compiler requires to generate object code for the linker which produces the machine-readable code.

However, when the executable is executed within a debugging environment, we can set breakpoints in the source code and step through the source code just as if the source itself were executing, as would be the case if C++ were an interpreted language. Unlike an interpreted language where we can change the source code and see the results immediately, the source code (or at least the portion that has changed) must be recompiled to accommodate the changes.

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8y ago

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